


Finding the Piano Man

by RainbowKittyPrincess (PrincessSmuttButt)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: America, Gay Marriage, I'm sorry I couldn't help it, M/M, Sequel, baby tobio, because I say so, daisuga - Freeform, pianist!Tobio, tobio and shouyou and brothers, ushioi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessSmuttButt/pseuds/RainbowKittyPrincess
Summary: A short sequel to "The Piano Man's Elegy," in which Tobio is now sixteen years old and already a professional concert pianist.Tobio Sawamura has waited patiently, his entire life, for the moment he can make his childhood mentor and former prodigy pianist, Tooru Oikawa, proud--now, the moment has come, ten years after Tooru Oikawa abandoned him. As he travels to America in preparation for his concert, determined to find and confront the piano man, Tobio worries that his first piano teacher will no longer remember him. He worries that at some point along the road, Tooru Oikawa forgot about him, and soon lands on Oikawa's doorstep to find out.





	Finding the Piano Man

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks for clicking on my short story, "Finding the Piano Man." 
> 
> This is a direct sequel to my other (much longer) story, "The Piano Man's Elegy," and I really just couldn't help but write it. It takes place ten years after the end of the original story. It really will make zero sense if you haven't read that one. 
> 
> (sorry that it kind of has nothing to do with IwaOi, but also not sorry.) 
> 
> I hope that those of you who found something lacking in the first story can find some satisfaction in this one--I certainly found a lot of satisfaction and closure in writing it. The relationship between Tobio and Tooru was one of my favorite parts to develop in the original. 
> 
> Shameless plug: I have lots of other stories, including another Haikyuu story and a few more in the works, so if you like this take a look at my profile :) 
> 
> Okay, enough rambling. Enjoy the story!
> 
> xoxo

**Finding the Piano Man**

I’ve waited a long time for this day—the day I am invited to play in Carnegie Hall. Rachmaninoff’s second and third concertos. I’ve been very patient about it all, and I’m generally not the most patient person. For this moment, though, for this day, I have been. So patient that my nerves have rotted, and the memories that once pushed me forward through rage and betrayal have become muted and numb. Patience has made me accustomed to the anger. The pain. At least, when it comes to him.

 

* * *

 

_What do I say to you? To the person who, perhaps without realizing, has influenced every aspect of my life since I was six years old? You planted passion and determination into my veins, but you didn’t stick around to watch them grow. More like weeds than flowers, maybe not beautiful—you were always so good at recognizing beautiful things. Good at creating beautiful things, too. I was so ugly until I met you and you taught me to make myself beautiful and I would’ve given my life to you, my whole fucking life, I would’ve sold my soul to you if it would’ve made you proud. That’s how much I love you. If I were drowning, I’d only let your hand pull me up. So just what the hell do I say to you, piano man?_

 

* * *

 

First I go to the police station. I remember his name, and I remember his face vividly, because once, an entire lifetime ago, he smiled at me and made me see stars in a gaze as dark and vast and sparkling as a galaxy. He never said much to me. But I remember his name so I go to the police department. I’m dressed in slacks and a button-up because I’m asking a favor, and my father taught me to be respectful when I ask favors.

“Hello. I’m looking for Detective Iwaizumi,” I say to the person at the desk. They raise their eyebrows.

“You mean Sergeant Iwaizumi,” they reply.

“Yes.”

“He’s out.”

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“When he gets back, will you please tell him that—”

I’m very lucky today. Very, unfairly lucky. Maybe because after all this time, all this patience, I really do deserve this.

“I’m Iwaizumi. How can I help you?”

He has just walked in, and as I turn to face hi, he smiles again. His smile hasn’t changed. Even after all this time, after what happened, after what the piano man did to him (maybe because of what the piano man did to him), his skin is smooth, his shoulders broad, his hair sleek and blacker than before. He looks handsome and strong and healthy.

“Sergeant Iwaizumi.” I bow at the waist, as low as I can. “You probably don’t remember me.”

“Don’t remember?” As I straighten, tuck a strand of misbehaving hair behind my ear, his smile grows warmer. Like fires when you throw in more wood. “Of course I remember. Your eyes are very distinctive—but you’ve certainly grown. Why don’t you come back to my office and we can talk?”

He puts his hand gently on my shoulder, his other hand gripping a mug of coffee, and encourages me to follow him. We walk through the labyrinth of the police station, through all its units, its uniformed officers, its criminals awaiting their fate. He takes me to his office in the back of the special investigations unit. He tells me to have a seat while he closes the door, so I sit, forcing myself to take deep breaths before this situation, all of it, can get the best of me. With the grunt of a veteran, he sits at his desk across from me. The office smells like smoke. There’s a framed photograph on his desk, only one, of him standing next to a beautiful woman in a wedding dress. They’re all smiles. Now the ring on his finger is much more obvious.

“Your face, I would never forget, not even after ten years,” Sergeant Iwaizumi begins, “but I can’t seem to recall your name.”

“Sawamura, sir. Tobio Sawamura.”

“Tobio. That’s it.” He narrows his eyes and reaches over to a half-empty carton of cigarettes. His gaze flickers to the ceiling. “Tobio.” He says my name again, trying to discern the taste on his tongue.

“I don’t remember you being married, sir.”

“No, I suppose I wasn’t when our paths crossed.”

“How long has it been?”

“Nine years.”

“She’s very pretty.”

“She’s the love of my life.”

“Are you sure I’m not interrupting anything, sir?”

“I’m sure. Actually, I’m glad you stopped by.” He laughs when the surprise flutters across my face. “I just mean that it’s good to think about the past every once in a while. And you remind me of a past I haven’t thought about in a long time.”

“I hope you don’t mind my saying this...but I think that’s a lie, sir.”

He falls silent, and his playful expression melts. Just dissipates, falls away in grains of sand. The silence permeates for a bit before he speaks again.

“How can I help you, Tobio?”

“Did you know that I’m a concert pianist now?”

“No. I didn’t. I’m sorry, I don’t keep up with that world anymore. Congratulations.”

“Thank you very much.”

“If I recall correctly, you were quite a talented kid.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been invited to play in Carnegie Hall.”

He takes a long drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke up toward the ceiling. Some of it still floats toward me. I cough.

“Don’t tell me,” he sneers. “Rachmaninoff, second and third?”

“Yes, sir.”

His lips pucker and he whistles.

“And his Piano Man Suite,” I add softly.

“Look at that,” he murmurs.

“I fly to New York next week.”

“Layover in Shanghai?”

“Direct.”

“Oh.”

“I would like to ask a favor of you, sir.”

Sergeant Iwaizumi stares hard at me for a few moments. His face is like steel now, and any warmth I’d seen before was gone. He’s thinking about the past even more than usual, and my face is making him relive something painful, and he’s trying to hide it. But he has to try much harder than usual, because I’m very good at reading him. I’m the same, after all.

 

* * *

 

_I wonder if you think about the way you scarred people. Your family, your lovers, me. This is the strongest man I’ve ever seen, with arms that could bend steel beams in half and a voice harsh from cigarettes, and there’s a piece of his heart that’s shattered forever. You did that. Do you think about the scars you gave him? I’m sure you do. In the end, you left them more for yourself than anything. Do you know how disconcerting it is, seeing this strong, strong man, become so small when your spirit is around? When just your name floats in the air? It’s terrifying, you know. But I don’t think I’m the same as him, actually. I’m just collateral damage, aren’t I?_

 

* * *

 

“You want to know where he is.” He brings the cigarette to his lips. “Last I heard, he was in Vermont.”

“Vermont...”

“That’s about a five hour drive from New York. Longer by bus.”

“Okay. Do you know where in Vermont?”

“No.”

“Please, Sergeant Iwaizumi. I’m begging you.”

I bow my head and my hands begin to tremble. The last of patience is starting to run out.

“Why now, kid? You’ve had ten years. Why now?”

“Because, sir. How could I show up at his door without having accomplished any of the things I promised I would?”

When I look up, there are tears in Sergeant Iwaizumi’s eyes. But he blinks them away so fast that I begin to question whether they were even there, crystals in the corners of his black abyss eyes. He lets the cigarette dangle from his lips, smoking, and grabs a notepad and a piece of paper. He scribbles an address down and hands it over to me. I take it with both hands.

“Thank you very much, sir. You don’t know much this means to me.”

“He loved you more than anything else, I think,” he says mockingly. “You were the one thing he didn’t ruin, and he loved you for it.”

“But he still left me. Just like he left everyone else. Just like he left you.”

Sergeant Iwaizumi crushes his cigarette on the ashtray and arches his neck over the back of his chair.

“Everything that man touched fell to pieces, and he knew it. I would’ve fallen to pieces if he’d stayed. You would’ve fallen to pieces, too.”

I stand and bow one more time.

“Thank you, Sergeant Iwaizumi, but I don’t believe you.”

I turn and leave.

 

* * *

 

My twin brother (fraternal—we look nothing alike) sits next to me on the airplane, and my stepfather sits behind us. My father promised to stream the show live, though I’d predicted that he wouldn’t be able to make it from the very beginning. America is far, after all. Shouyou, older than me by a total of two minutes, nudges me with his knee as I stare out of the plane window. Annoyed, I nudge him back, harder, so he elbows me, and I have no choice whatsoever but to elbow him back. He elbows me a second time.

“Stop it,” I hiss, and dig my elbow into his rib cage.

“Ow!”

“Boys. Come on. You can survive for another three hours, can’t you?” Suga whispers from behind us.

Shouyou is hiding a smile, but I keep my face hard, so that he knows I’m annoyed and not in the mood to joke. I turn decisively back to the window. I can feel his wide-eyed gaze on me, staring, but I do my best to ignore it.

“Stop being so melodramatic,” he says quietly. “If you’re gonna be mopey and pouty for the whole trip, maybe it’s not a good idea.”

“What the hell do you know? You wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe not...but, I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t seen you like this in a while.”

He’s too genuine for me to stay mad. The longest I’ve ever been able to stay angry with him is a few days, and I haven’t been that mad since I was about thirteen. I sit up straight and let my eyes wander to the back of the seat in front of me.

“Are you nervous about the concert?” he asks.

“No. I don’t get nervous when I play.”

“I just mean because it’s exactly what he played when he was at Carnegie.”

“...I guess I’m a little bit nervous. Just scared.”

“That you’ll disappoint him.”

“Yeah. I guess.” I sigh and swipe my hand across my face. “I’m really scared of what will happen when I see him.”

“Hey, come on—”

“What if he doesn’t remember me? What if he really has forgotten about me?”

“Tobio.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I can tell from the way his voice has dropped that he’s serious. Really serious. I look over, pouting like a child (a habit I never did manage to grow out of), and sure enough, he’s there. Eyes like suns, so circular, so bright. Blinding. He’s staring hard at me so that I have nowhere else to look, no chance to even think about listening to the voices in my head.

“I don’t remember much from back then. But I do remember the way he made you feel. I remember my brother coming home from lessons happier than I’d ever seen him. I remember the way he gushed, bragged, that his teacher loved him. You stupid piece of shit, you always tried to make me jealous.” Here, he breaks into a smile. “There’s no way in hell that a man who made you feel like that is going to turn you away at his door.”

“You’re so stupid,” I say curtly. And then I turn away again, but now, I’m hiding a smile of my own. “You’re always optimistic about literally everything, and it’s dumb as hell.”

“Jerk.”

I can’t help it. I punch him in the arm, and he yells, and now everyone’s looking at us. From between the seats, Suga reaches out, grabs our ears, and pulls.

“Ow, ow, ow—”

“You touch your brother one more time and I swear I’ll force the captain to land right now.”

He lets go, and our ears have turned red. But, amidst the pain and the shame of being reprimanded in front of all these people, we’re trying not to giggle. Because that’s what we do.

 

* * *

 

_I was at the conservatory once, and I wanted to add something special to my repertoire. So I began hunting through the sheet music, sifting through all the big names. Schubert, Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Liszt, even the Bach that you despise. (To be fair to you, I never could fall in love with Rachmaninoff the way you did.) There was a book I found. One of those beautiful books of sheet music, with glossy white covers and spirals. It was thicker than I would’ve expected. I looked through it for hours—it was yours. Everything that you’ve written in the past ten years, dedicating your life to this because you can’t dedicate it to that anymore. People say you’re selfish. You say you’re selfish. But I think you’re the most selfless person. I stole the book of your sheet music, and I play from it every day. I have all of your pieces memorized. I know stealing is wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. I want to play them all for you._

 

* * *

 

I originally wanted to take the bus to Vermont alone, because I thought it would be cathartic and a journey from New York City to Vermont would do me good. But Suga, as was his nature, insisted on renting a car and driving me all the way there. The drive is shorter that way, he said, and you’ll have good company on the way. He wouldn’t dare say that he wanted to be there to bring me back if the man I was going to see didn’t remember me, or worse, did remember me, but wanted nothing to do with me.

So Shouyou sits in the passenger seat (oldest gets dibs, no matter how much taller the younger is) while I spread myself out in the back, and Suga drives down the highway. I’ve gotten bored of the New England scenery. It’s gotten dreary. It’s beautiful, sure, with trees and lush landscapes and hills and everything you could imagine is in New England, but I’m tired and melodramatic and my nerves are eating me alive.

I hardly say a word for the entire drive, but Shouyou and Suga fill the silence, along with the awful gaps in my brain, singing along to Disney. As I wane in and out of sleep to the sound of _Mulan_ and _Aladdin_ and _The Lion King_ , I see his face, and hear his music swimming around in my head. He once said to me that each person has their own song, their own type of music, and if you’re talented and passionate enough, you can sense their music. I asked him what my song was.

“You’re special,” he said, “because I can’t tell. I can hear your music, I hear it so clearly, but it’s just everything all at once and it’s amazing.”

At the time I was disappointed, because I wanted my own song.

“I don’t have a song either,” he said, when I pouted at him. And then I smiled.

After about five hours, we get lost after we miss the exit, and Shouyou and I spend the next half hour arguing about the GPS while Suga does his best to get us to relax. But my nerves are practically gone now, and I’m more nervous than I’ve ever been, because I can’t imagine what’s going to happen. It feels like my entire life, every moment, has been building up to this, and now I can’t fucking find the address because Shouyou messed up the navigation. Shouyou and I feed off each other’s moods, so now that I’m anxious and irritable, he’s anxious and irritable, too. But I don’t know how else to be. Not right now.

“Both of you shut up. Tobio, give me your phone. I’ll do it myself.” Suga rips my phone from my hands, and I collapse back onto the seat while Shouyou sticks his tongue out at me. “Honestly, you two are ridiculous.”

Sure enough, in fifteen minutes, we enter a large, wealthy residential community. All of the houses are mansions, with beautiful, flamboyant gardens and archways and fountains with sculpted cherubs and fish. The windows are clean and clear, the sun hits everything just right, and there’s too much space in between each house. Trees surround them, nestling them like the castles you read about in fairy tales. Sleep has gone away from me, so I’m wide awake and paying excruciating attention to every address number we see.

“1406, 1408...” I read to myself. “1410. It’s right here.”

Suga stops the car in front of a large, darker-colored mansion. It seems out of place, because the other houses are light, with beige and white and baby blue, but this house is dark brown, red, earthy and almost foreboding. The garden, though, is beautiful, and it all smells just like roses. As the car stops, so does my heart. I can’t feel myself, my emotions, my body, I can’t feel any of it anymore. I’m left paralyzed, staring through my distorted reflection at this house. Suddenly, my mind is blank, and everything that I’ve been telling myself for ten years vanishes. I sit, I stare, I think of nothing and feel nothing but fear. All that patience, all that understanding, all that determination...it’s gone, swallowed up by this big, ominous house.

Until the car door is thrown open and Shouyou grabs me by the arm and pulls me out.

“Nope, you’re not backing out now. We drove you all the way to the middle of nowhere. You have to do this.”

I stumble as his unexpected strength forces me from the car, because my legs feel like jelly, and I should’ve expected this. He slams the door closed before I can even blink and stands right in front of me.

“Hey. You’ve been waiting for this. Don’t chicken out now.”

“I’m not chickening out,” I bark.

“Good.”

He smiles, bright and genuine, so I force myself to smile back. He’ll get really worried, I think, if I don’t. I don’t generally smile—I’m not a smiley person. Shouyou knows that. But if I don’t force it now, at this moment, they’ll worry.

“Tobio. Come here.”

Suga beckons me over to the window. As I lean down, he forcefully grabs my chin and plants a slobbery, ritualistic kiss on my cheek. Then he wipes it off for me and looks me in the eyes.

“If you’re uncomfortable at all—hey, look at me—if you’re uncomfortable _at all_ , you call me right away. Shouyou and I will come get you. All right?”

I mumble an affirmative.

“What was that?”

“Okay,” I say.

Suga’s smiles, not like Shouyou’s, not at all (Suga’s not blood-related to us, after all), I’m convinced have the power to heal. Not in a supernatural way. They can’t cure sicknesses. Nothing like that. But they can heal _something_. When there’s brokenness, or emptiness, or something as simple as nervousness, his smile heals. He gives me one of those panacea smiles, then kisses my cheek again.

“You guys can leave now. I’ll be fine,” I say, hoping that my voice doesn’t shake.

“Okay. Remember—”

“I know, I know. I’ll call if I need you.”

“Good boy. All right, Shouyou, honey. Let’s go.”

As Shouyou moves past me toward the passenger seat, he reaches his fist out. I bump mine against his, return his grin, and then watch him get into the car. Watch them drive back the way they came. Out to lunch, or something. Anywhere that’s not here. Then I turn and walk up to the front door. It feels like I’m scaling a mountain—the front door is so damn far from the end of the driveway. Why would someone have a driveway this long? With cobblestones, and trimmed hedges, and colorful flowers at every step? Each step feels so much longer than the last, and my chest constricts and I have to focus all my energy on bringing the breath into my lungs.

Suddenly, every horrible scenario starts running through my head. It’s not him. This house isn’t his, and I’m going to be both disappointed and relieved, but very exhausted, and will probably cry and feel too much anxiety to keep looking. Or it is him, and he recognizes me, and tells me I’m not welcome and slams the door in my face. Or it is him, and he doesn’t recognize me, and even when I tell him who I am, he doesn’t remember me. Because he’s moved on. I was nothing to him, just a little speck, not nearly as important to him as he was (and has been) to me. I remind myself, again, to breathe.

One step at a time. I drag my feet, and reach out until my fingertips brush the hedges. They’re awfully green. Suddenly I’m imagining emeralds—sapphires, rubies, diamonds, every gem adorning this garden spanning a distance larger than an entire universe. I’m going to be here forever, I think. I’ll never get to the front door. And then hands start reaching up from between the cobblestones and grasping my ankles. I grasp deep inside myself for that thing, that one thing that has brought me here, that has forced me to walk this path and will give me the strength I need to kick away these hands and knock on the door.

It’s the love of a little six year-old boy for his piano man.

I’m at the front door now. My body trembles. The last time I felt this much anxiety was before my very first recital. Not once since then. When I listen for hints of life, I hear only silence. The blinds to the windows are open, but I’m not rude enough to peer inside. The door is smaller up close than it seemed.

All my fear, in a single fleeting moment, dissipates. I’m here now. And I’m here for a reason.

I knock on the door three times, and wait.

“One moment,” I hear from inside, in perfect, accent-less English. I convince myself that I don’t recognize the voice, just for these few seconds of silence and reflection, so I can entertain the idea that I’ll escape responsibility this time.

I hear soft, delicate footsteps.

The door opens and my body is a sheet of ice that’s on fire.

He stands right in front of me, tall, hardly changed but for the slightly deeper wrinkles and the more mature glasses (I remember that he didn’t always wear glasses, only on certain days). He has a soft, mischievous smile on his face. A practiced expression, I can tell. With the bright light emanating from his silhouette—can everybody else see it?—he looks out of place in this dark-house doorway.

“Hello. Can I help you?” he asks, face unchanging. All I can do is stare, silently, for a few moments, because I’m still in shock that he’s here in front of me. Everything I’ve dreamed and imagined is rising up my stomach to my throat and making my cheeks fill with color, every color, a rainbow on my face because he makes me want to be beautiful.

Just when I’m convinced, though, that he doesn’t recognize me, his smile disappears. He furrows his brow. Before he gets the chance to say anything else, I bow, aggressively, almost painfully, and squeeze my eyes shut to hide the tears.

“Oikawa-sensei,” I say.

“Stop that.” His hand, firm, grasps my arm and rips me up. “Stop that this instant.”

I can say nothing else before he pulls me into his arms. I’m not a big hugger. Not usually. But I hold him as tightly as I can and breathe him in, because he still smells exactly the same, and suddenly I’m back in his house. Sitting in the beautiful, sunlit piano room, learning how to make music while he sits beside me.

He doesn’t ask me why I’m here, doesn’t ask me how I found him, doesn’t say anything, for at least five minutes. We just stand on his doorstep. Holding each other. I hate myself for being so cowardly before.

When we finally pull apart, he’s crying. I’m crying, too. But I’m keeping the tears away—he’s not. They stream down his cheeks like crystals. He puts his hand on my cheek and smiles a smile that has made his entire garden bloom, and makes me shrivel up from the inside out.

“Look at you,” he breathes. “You’re all grown up now.”

He asks me to come inside. I go inside.

“We can sit and have a proper discussion inside,” he interrupts when I open my mouth. “So don’t say a single word yet.”

I smile.

The house on the inside is much brighter and sweeter than the outside. The halls are large and adorned, and it’s clean and smells like citrus. It’s very attuned to his tastes. Before the living room, though, he leads me into a different room—it looks like a private rehabilitation center, with machines and rehab equipment.

“I want you to say hello to someone, first.”

He pulls me into the room after him. There, on a raised mat against the far wall, is the man who I had seen before living in Oikawa-sensei’s house. Back then, he was a tall, broad-shouldered, strong detective who could strike fear with just a look. He emanated the kind of strength that makes criminals shake and anyone else jealous, the kind of strength that made six year-old children want to turn to them for help when bullies harassed them. There is a different strength in him now. His face is as stoic as it was back then, but his hair has already started graying—he can’t be older than 37—and he has lost a lot of weight. Though, probably not recently. His body seems content with itself. When Oikawa-sensei and I walk into the room, the detective (whose name I cannot remember) props himself up on his elbows. Then he grabs his legs and with a sweep of his arm puts them off the edge of the table. They hang, limp, unusable.

“Hello, sir.” I bow at the waist. “My name is—”

“Tobio Sawamura,” he interrupts. I stand right back up, taken aback, and he’s smiling. “I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I remember you very well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Call me Ushijima.”

“Thank you for having me in your home, Ushijima-san.” I bow again.

“Will you stop that already?” Oikawa-sensei hisses. I straighten, and watch with a hidden smile as Oikawa-sensei walks over to stand beside his husband.  

“I’m surprised you remember me, sir,” I admit to Ushijima-san.

“You were always Tooru’s favorite. He hasn’t stopped talking about you for ten years.”

“Wakatoshi!” Oikawa-sensei playfully smacks his arm. “Don’t embarrass me like that.”

“Sorry,” he replies, but he’s smiling now, too. I don’t remember them being like this. Content. Warm.

“Honey, I’m going to have Tobio-chan join me in the sitting room for a little bit. We’ll have to finish the session later,” he says, softly, crouching so that his lips are next to Ushijima-san’s ear.

“That’s fine.” His smile flickers as Oikawa-sensei kisses his temple.

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks. Nice to see you again, Tobio.”

“Likewise, sir,” I say. I bow, one last time, despite Oikawa-sensei tugging on my arm, and then I turn and follow him out. We keep going down the main entryway.

“We do daily physical rehab,” he explains without looking over at me. “It keeps the muscles in his legs from deteriorating too much.”

“Every day?”

“For the past ten years. And hopefully, the next sixty.”

He’s still staring straight ahead, walking boldly, the heels of his shoes creating music of their own in these vast halls. I stare at him, so much shorter and smaller and uglier than him, and try to figure out a truth in his face. There’s a truth there, I know, that’s not in his words, but it’s been too long and I can’t see it.

He takes me into a large, elaborate sitting room, and when I walk inside I realize it’s almost an exact replica of the one he had in Tokyo, the one I spent so many afternoons in. He tells me to sit, make myself comfortable, and he’ll bring some tea. So I sit, alone, hands in my lap, not at all comfortable, because I feel like this should be harder. This shouldn’t be so easy. That’s not what either of us deserves. My body feels like stone.

He comes back in carrying a tray with a teapot and two teacups. I try to help, but he shoos my hand away and does it himself. I don’t even see any trembles in his hands. They’re not red. But they’re stiff. He sits down beside me and hugs me again, and then takes a sip of tea.

“You haven’t changed at all,” he teases.

“You have.”

“Yes. I have,” he laughs. “Though I’m still as much of a bastard as I always was.”

“I never thought you were bastard. Except when you left. I thought you were a bastard then.”

We fall silent, and his gaze flickers. I hope it hurts. Because I’m angry now, at the way he greeted me and brought me in like it was nothing.

“You know, you were the only reason I had to stay,” he replies smoothly.

“But I wasn’t a good enough reason.”

“I wanted to break my own heart. I knew that if I left you, if I followed those stupider reasons to leave rather than follow the one good reason to stay, I’d never have to take responsibility.”

“You thought that leaving me was the best way to do that? A six year-old boy? Who loved you more than anything?”

His smile is dry and black.

“Yes. It was selfish.”

“Selfish,” I snort.

“Horrible. But you survived without me. Didn’t you?” Here, he looks over at me, bringing the tea to his lips. A glimmer flashes like lightning across his eyes. “Tell me, what is you’re doing here in the States, anyway?”

I know he knows why I’m here. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked, and wouldn’t be smiling that keen smile.

“I’m playing a concert in Carnegie.”

“Oh, that’s right! How silly of me to have forgotten.”

“So you have been keeping track of me? I...wasn’t sure.”

His face softens, and he starts to smooth my hair—the way he used to back then. When I was young and those touches meant the world to me. Meant protection, love, support. Intimacy. I close my eyes and feel him there.

“Of course I have, my sweet boy. You’ve been my glimmer of hope and salvation all this time. I told you, ten years ago: I will always support you and love you.”

“Then why did you leave?” I can’t help it anymore. My lower lip trembles, my vision blurs from the tears, and before I have the chance to even cry once he pulls me against his chest. I’m not sure how many minutes, or how many hours, I spend, grasping onto him, clinging, crying against him. He kisses me on the forehead.

“I’m so glad you came back to me, Tobio-chan. I love you very much.”

“I love you, too, Oikawa-sensei.”

“You have done all I expected and more.”

“I did it for you.”

“No, sweet boy, no.” He pulls back, wipes the tears off my cheeks, and kisses my forehead again. “No. You did it for you.”

My voice shakes and my lips still tremble, but I continue to speak.

“Will you come? To New York City? Will you come watch me?”

“Well...since you came all this way to ask me, I suppose I’ll go,” he says. I’m so bored of him teasing me, but as I’m about to snap at him, he pulls two tickets from his jacket pocket. “Luckily, I already have tickets.”

“You were planning on going the whole time,” I breathe.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

It’s now that we start to fall into a rhythm. Into easy conversation that holds our entire lives for the past ten years, and we unload ourselves on each other. I tell him how I never stopped thinking of him, not once, as I clawed my way to the top of the professional music world. And he tells me, with all the sincerity in the world, that he loves his husband.

“I do. I really do,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a lie.

“Really? I always assumed, after I heard what happened, that you left because you thought you owed him.”

“Well, maybe at first, that’s how I felt about him. Back when I was quite melodramatic.”

“I don’t know, Oikawa-sensei. You still seem plenty melodramatic to me.”

“Cheeky boy,” he reprimands. “My point is, there is absolutely nothing wrong with falling in love slowly, and giving people a chance. And there’s nothing wrong with loving multiple people.”

“Each person gets a different love, because each person is different,” I reply. Echoing the words he said to me when I was confused about love.

“That’s absolutely right, Tobio-chan.”

“It was Det—I mean, Sergeant Iwaizumi who gave me your address, you know.”

“Sergeant. Look at that,” Oikawa-sensei grins. “Still in special investigations?”

“Yeah.”

“And did he end up marrying that woman? I can’t even remember her name anymore.”

“I think so.”

“Good. That’s good.”

He falls silent and sips his tea.

“He seems about as happy as you,” I venture. Hiding his smile behind the rim of the cup, he pinches my cheek. “Your hands aren’t red anymore.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” He holds a hand out, stretching his fingers. They don’t stretch very far. “I’ve gone into a sort of remission. That’s what the doctors say, at least. I can do all my basic tasks, but I’m still a little stiff. Some of the joint damage was irreparable.”

“Can you...?”

A sad smile crosses his lips as he lowers his hand.

“No. I’ve lost all my ability to play piano. It happened gradually, but I stopped being able to play completely about five years ago. Remission couldn’t fix it.”

My heart breaks, but I open my mouth and let it fall out anyway.

“I’m sorry, Oikawa-sensei.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m glad I was able to pass on whatever skills I had to you.”

“I’m sure you held back some of your tricks, right?”

“Not at all. I really did teach you everything I know.”

“Not how to compose.”

“Because when I was teaching you, I didn’t know how to compose,” he laughs.

“But your very first composition, the one you were working on back in Tokyo, it’s still your most popular.”

“The Piano Man’s Elegy, you mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, well, humility has never been one of my strong suits.”

“I learned how to play it, you know.”

“You did?”

“I learned how to play every single piece you composed.”

The smile runs away from his face, and he puts down his teacup.

“Every single piece, Tobio-chan?”

“Yes.”

“I must have composed hundreds of pieces by now.”

“Five-hundred thirty-four,” I reply. “I learned how to play all of them.”

“Tobio-chan...”

“It wasn’t hard. Do you still have a piano?”

“O-of course.”

“Can I see it?”

I can tell he’s rattled, but he gets up anyway and grabs me by the hand. We walk together through the house, to a piano room close to the kitchen. The door is closed, not at all like his house in Tokyo. With windows and a large door. It’s a secluded, enclosed space. And it’s dark. When we step inside, Oikawa-sensei flips on the lights to reveal a beautiful grand piano, gathering dust, with sheet music drafts on its stand and a bench that’s too high.

“I don’t play it anymore. But I like to be near it when I compose.”

“Naturally,” I say. “Can I play something for you?”

“I would love nothing more.”

“Okay. Come sit next to me.”

“All right.”

I sit at the bench, and he sits beside me, taller and more beautiful, but no longer able to make music. He’s passed on those skills to me, and the musician he once was sits on my perfectly-not-red fingers. I play the scale first, just like he taught me. I feel his hand touch the back of my head and smooth my hair down—my hair is sleek and black, and never needs smoothing, but he smoothes it anyway.

“Are you ready?” I ask, fingers holding bubbles over the keys.

“Yes.”

“Hey. You’re not allowed to cry, Oikawa-sensei,” I say when I see the tears on the edges of his eyes. “You don’t get to do that.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Go ahead and play whatever you want for me, darling.”

“You’ll recognize it.”

After he published his first composition, it became wildly popular overnight. Even among people who used to scorn classical music, find only boredom in piano compositions, it was a hit. It became evident that the world-famous pianist Tooru Oikawa had just as much talent in musical composition as he did in playing the piano. Because of its popularity (I assumed) he composed an entire “Piano Man Suite,” supposedly telling the story of his fall from grace and inability to do what he was passionate about in the language of music. The suite is still immensely popular, and has been played in over one hundred concert halls by one hundred different pianists across the world. It’s not easy, by any stretch of the imagination, and the critics all rave about how he does so well bringing in the classic elements of Romanticism into the contemporary age. He’s never been anything but a romantic, though I’m sure they never knew that.

I’m playing the suite at the concert, along with the Rachmaninoff concertos. But there’s one piece in particular within the suite that I love. Surprisingly enough, it’s not The Piano Man’s Elegy. My favorite piece within the composition is the last one, titled Finding the Piano Man.  

I start to play it for him. Somehow, I’m clear-headed, dry-eyed, focused. But not really focused. Because if I’m too focused, I know, I’ll lose the passion and the beauty so inherent in this piece. Technicality is important. But he’s the one who taught me that it’s not worth compromising passion and image for technicality. I just want to play it in a way that’s beautiful for him. I want to play it the way he’s always imagined it being played. I’ve practiced it for so long, so many times, just to be able to play it while he sits beside me, holding back tears and smoothing my hair.

He starts to hum along.

I keep playing, and he keeps humming, and we’re piano men together.

 


End file.
